NES Games Begging For A Remake

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We chronicle five old-school Nintendo games that could use some 21st century love.

By Colin Moriarty and Daemon Hatfield

It's hard to talk about classic gaming without bringing up the NES. After all, it was the console that took America by storm in the 1980s, reviving a dying industry and hooking millions upon millions of new gamers for life in the process.

Due to quality control measures wisely implemented by Nintendo (after watching Atari perish without them), the NES was home to an incredible amount of great games. Many of those games reached classic status, and we still talk about them to this day. Others were awesome in their own right, but flew under the radar. After all, how many people were going to give Kickle Cubicle a chance when all anyone could talk about was Super Mario Bros.?

Some of these titles have noticeable flaws that frustrated many players, but they're still considered some of the best games available. We've cobbled together a list of five such games that we think deserve a new look, perhaps in the form of a rerelease that will expose a more polished form of the game to an all-new audience. After all, what better way is there to expose a title gamers missed than to rerelease it on a more easily-accessible console or handheld?

Konami's mastery of side-scrolling action games with a horror-strewn gothic feel was represented well on the NES, but if there's one game that got the short end of the stick in its localization to the United States (and elsewhere outside of Japan), it's Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Unlike the original Castlevania and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Castlevania II was a non-linear action-RPG predicated on the typical Castlevania gameplay we know and love.

Whip it good!

Castlevania II took gamers outside of Dracula's castle and its surrounding environs and into the Eastern European countryside. There, Simon Belmont was tasked with finding five missing pieces of Dracula's body, only to resurrect him and kill him once more... hopefully permanently this time. (We all know how well that turned out.) With the rise in popularity of RPG-heavy Castlevania games like Symphony of the Night, as well as the smorgasbord of GBA and DS titles cut from the same cloth, we think it's time to return to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest to give it the love it deserves. After all, it was clearly the inspiration for those titles.

Exit Theatre Mode

The main problem with Castlevania II was its awful translation, which was typical for the time. Many a person, both then and now, lied and said they knew you had to kneel next to that mountain with a gem equipped and sit there for ten seconds so that a tornado can whisk you away to a new part of the map. But no one actually figured that out organically, even if they somehow convinced themselves that they did. So stay true to the combat, music, and feel of the original, Konami. Put an HD gloss over everything and call it a day. But please, please, please fix the horrendously botched translation.

Developer Capcom was a third-party powerhouse during the lifespan of the NES. Other than first-party Nintendo games, and perhaps other top-tier developers like Konami, the quality of Capcom games were virtually unrivaled. From Mega Man to Bionic Commando, Capcom released game after game that blew players away. But amongst all of the hyped-up games, one got lost in the mix. Its name is Code Name: Viper, and we think it warrants a new look from an able developer who may be able to introduce it to an all-new generation.

Why isn't this game remembered?

The thing about Code Name: Viper is how much it reeks of the 1980s. The war on drugs was at a fever pitch, and Viper attempts to take advantage of that. Gamers are tasked with going to seven drug bases in South America to stop the flow of drugs northward. Your character is a gun-toting badass, but he's not as prickly as you might think. While filleting bad guys with all manner of firearms is your specialty, you'll also have the opportunity to rescue innocent bystanders and hostages from the fray, driving up your point total in the process.

Clearly, the best route to take for a Code Name: Viper remake is to spoof the premise. It could still be known by the same name, but it would be awesome if Capcom approached a possible remake as an opportunity not only to revive a long-dead one-off franchise, but to make fun of the 1980s' War on Drugs, and all of the over-the-top action flicks that came along with it. Strap Viper with ridiculous weapons, let him continue to rescue damsels in distress, and remind everybody about the ludicrous nature of the anti-drug movement of the 80s. That's where we'd like a remake to go.